Remember Tonight
by hipsbeforehands
Summary: If Letty were alive...she'd do everything within her power to get back to Dom, right?  So, what's kept her in Berlin against her will?  What's the one thing that's too important to risk?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: I do not own anything related to the Fast and Furious franchise. This work is intended purely for entertainment purposes. No profit was gained from this work.

**Remember Tonight**

_Remember tonight... for it is the beginning of always._

-Dante

Dominic Toretto has been driving for over an hour. His brother-in-law, Brian O'Connor, sits silently in the passenger seat; either lost in his own thoughts or just smart enough to leave Dom to his own devices. Dom presses the accelerator closer to the floor and watches distractedly as the pristine waters of the Arabian Sea fly by. Concentrating on the steady purr of the brand new Chevy Camaro he's driving, he lets the tires eat up the road, putting more and more distance between himself and the place he's been calling home for the past several months. He's been almost content there. Not happy…never that, but content enough with Mia's happiness to accept the absence of his own.

After the job in Brazil, they'd been set…nothing left to do but disappear. And disappear they had, to a remote beach on the western coast of Goa. Brian and Mia had settled in happily, and a little over a year ago they welcomed a beautiful daughter into the world.

They named her Leticia.

Dom was simultaneously touched and pissed off by the gesture. He is eternally grateful that they call her by her middle name, Amaya. He loves her dearly, but it's hard to be around the girl…around their collective happiness.

So, he comes and goes.

Initially he'd traveled with Elena, finding solace in her understanding. They'd eased each other's pain, temporarily, but eventually it hadn't been enough for her. One day he'd headed to the next destination and she hadn't gone with him. No muss, no fuss. Since then he's preferred to keep to himself…only the occasional warm body to share his bed and help him ease the loneliness for a few hours, but even those are few and far between. He learned fairly quickly that the encounters leave him feeling even more empty and disconnected than usual. Most of the time it just isn't worth it.

About three months ago, at the end of one of his sporadic visits, Mia had asked him to stay. Actually, begged, would be a better word. He hadn't been able to leave so easily that time. Instead he'd moved into the detached garage, insisting that if she wanted him to stay he had to have his own space. She'd readily agreed, and he and his meager possessions had been settled into the garage by the next afternoon.

He's been there ever since.

It's worked out surprisingly well. Brian and Mia are good about giving him his space. He still keeps mostly to himself, but he makes the effort to show up for dinner every night. He knows it means the world to Mia, and if he's honest with himself, it means the world to him, too. Some days he's had to grit his teeth against the pain of watching what he knew he'd never have, but it's better to see the people he loves happy, and be a part of it, than to miss out completely. Those nights around the dinner table have given him an odd insight into what it must have been like for Letty all those years ago, sitting around his family's dinner table…welcome, wanted even, but not really part of the family unit. Just the little neighbor girl from down the street with nowhere else to go. Though he was just a kid himself, he wishes now he'd done more to include her.

Letty.

He's been trying for two years to extinguish the slow, painful burn that spreads across his chest when he thinks of her. But he thinks of her often…constantly…and there's no stopping the way it affects him. He feels the heavy weight of his necklace resting against his chest, the silver, solid and warm, against his skin…Letty's cross.

He presses harder on the accelerator.

He's been making more of an effort lately. Going through the motions of day-to-day life. Getting up, working on the steady stream of cars that pass through the garage, enjoying a picnic lunch with Mia and Amaya, having a beer with Brian, eating dinner as a family, going to bed alone…doing it all over again the next day.

He thinks he's getting better at faking it.

But then today…it all came crashing down around him.

He'd been in the garage, working as usual. Brian came in the side door, calling for him to pick up the phone. "It's for you, man," he'd said.

"Who is it?" Dom asked, surprised.

Brian shrugged in answer.

Dom was somewhat confused, not many people had his number here. Rosa, Tego, Han, Elena… Rosa was the only one he could think of who might have a reason to contact him here, but Brian would know her voice. So, it was with a certain amount of trepidation that he picked up the phone.

"Yeah," he said, offering little to the person on the other end until he knew the identity of the caller.

"Dominic Toretto?" came a heavily accented male voice from the other end of the line.

"Who wants to know?" Dom questioned, unwilling to give any information to this man until he knew the exact nature of the call.

"Who I am is not important…" came the thick German accent once again. "What is important is what I'm about to do for you."

Now he was intrigued. "What are you gonna do for me?" he asked, smugly, knowing the man had nothing to offer him. He had all the money he'd ever need for himself, and everything else…well…there was nothing else.

"I'm going to give you back your family." The man paused, dramatically, before adding in a deceptively casual tone, "Your son…he looks so much like his mother."

Dom's stomach rolled, and his lungs burned with the effort it took not to scream his rage into the phone. He shoved down the pain the man's words had caused. "I don't have a son," he said, tightly, preparing to hang up the phone.

A low laugh found it's way into his ear and then, "Oh but you do, Dominic. And he and Ms. Ortiz are on their way to you as we speak. It's a long flight from Berlin, but they should be safely ensconced in your little place in Samana by tonight. I'd get to the airport if I were you."

Then the line went dead.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Notes**: Thank you all so much for the wonderful reviews and feedback! Hope you enjoy my take on Dom and Letty's journey!

**Remember Tonight Chapter 2**

* * *

><p>"<em>I don't have a son.<em>"

At these words Brian had paused in his retreat from the garage. He stood watching Dom carefully for the remainder of the conversation. When the phone began to buzz frantically in Dom's ear, Brian reached out and took it, settling it noiselessly into the cradle.

"What is it, Dom?" Brian asked, worried at his friend's reaction to the call, and still puzzled by the last words he'd spoken before he was disconnected.

"Letty," Dom managed. That was all, just her name.

"What about Letty?" Brian asked, confused.

Dom played the man's final words over in his head, trying to make sense of them. Letty was alive, she had a son, his son. She was in Berlin. Or rather, she had been. She wasn't dead. She was on her way to him right now. Did he believe it? Could he believe? He'd seen the accident site, her grave…but no body. He thought back to the last time he'd seen her. His heart hammered in his chest.

His son.

Letty.

"I have to get to the airport," he said, heading toward his car.

"Dom, wait…you can't just go running off to the airport based on what some guy told you over the phone."

Dom paused, momentarily considering what Brian was saying.

"It could be a trap…it could be the cops," Brian ticked off the possibilities on his fingers. "What could be so important that you'd risk being caught without taking the time to check this out?"

"My family," Dom said, simply. Seeing Brian's confusion, he added, "I have a son." Saying the words made him realize that he didn't even know the child's name. He hadn't even asked. His hands were shaking. It occurred to him that he might actually be in shock.

He grabbed his keys off the counter and headed out the door.

"What?" Brian asked in disbelief. "With Letty? If Letty'd had a kid, you would've known about it," Brian insisted.

"You don't understand," Dom muttered.

When Brian tried to stop him from getting in the car, it took everything in him not to hit the younger man. "I'm going," he said, firmly. "You can ride with me or get the hell out of my way."

Brian headed for the passenger seat. He barely had the door closed when Dom left a cloud of sand and gravel in their wake.

"Dom…" Brian started, before being cut off.

"You don't understand, Brian," his voice rose.

"No, man, I don't," Brian agreed, gearing up to argue.

"She was _pregnant_," Dom admitted, the words springing from his lips, unbidden. They were a long overdue confession after months of silence, but he felt no comfort, no sense of relief, in saying them now.

"What?" Brian gasped, shocked.

"Letty was pregnant," Dom whispered, his voice strained. He gripped the steering wheel more tightly and tried hard to maintain his focus on the road.

"How do you know?" Brian was grasping at details, trying to keep up with the flow of information.

"She told me." He looked at Brian, his face etched with guilt, and then said, "I knew it before I left her in the Dominican Republic."

"Jesus, Dom. What the hell happened, man?" Brian's mind raced. So many things made sense now. Dom's difficulty being around Amaya, his underlying sadness when Mia'd told them she was pregnant. They had known Dom was still mourning Letty, the woman he loved, had loved since he was a kid…but it had been so much more than that. Letty, his child…his family. Brian reeled.

"A couple of months before she..." Dom glanced at Brian, unable to say the words.

Brian nodded, acknowledging the accident, Letty's assumed-death. Satisfied that Brian was with him, Dom took a deep breath, and like water from a broken dam, the story began to flow out of him.

"We met up in Mexico…I hadn't seen her in months, but she looked beautiful." He smiled at the memory. "She was happy and healthy…life on the run hadn't phased her at all. She'd kept under the radar, and you know Letty…she was thriving." He shifted gears, and the car surged forward and moved a little faster. "We spent eight days together in a little fishing village she'd been holed up in called Chacahua. She had this bungalow there with sand floors and open-air windows." His voice took on a dreamy quality now as he recalled their time together in Mexico. "We stayed up every night and slept in every day…swam in this little lagoon just down the beach from us. It reminded me of my favorite spot in the D.R. I took her to that spot a few weeks later when she followed me to Samana."

Dom rubbed his hand over his baldhead and blew out a breath.

"I knew something was up as soon as she got there," he said, his voice full of the memory. "We'd been meeting up in different locations as often as we could, but money and the ability to travel under the radar meant sometimes plans had to change at the last minute. That job with the fuel tankers had come out of nowhere, and I couldn't pass it up." He shook his head. "Anyway, me not showing up at our meeting place wasn't a first…but her tracking me down when I didn't show was."

Dom thought back to that day, two years ago, when Letty had appeared in front of him as if out of thin air.

"_It ain't that hard to track you down…all I gotta do is follow the odor of skanks."_

She'd laughed good-naturedly when he'd mentioned that life has a way of changing one's plans. He hadn't known at the time what she found so amusing about that statement.

He had figured it out pretty quickly, but not before they pulled that job on the fuel tankers. He never would've let her be a part of it if he'd known…not without putting up one hell of a fight, anyway.

When he thinks back now, he's surprised it took him as long as it did to put the pieces together. From the moment she tracked him down, she'd seemed different somehow…still playful and wild, like herself, but there was something about her eyes…about the way she held onto him a little tighter, a little longer than usual, that just seemed off. Letty had always been affectionate, yes…possessive, definitely…but she'd never been one to seek comfort in an embrace, had never let him hold her for too long. That day on the beach when he'd taken her to his favorite cove, she'd made love to him with a fierceness that took his breath away, but it was the aftermath that had given him pause. They'd lain there on the soft beach blanket, taking a moment to catch their breath. He'd turned onto his side and pulled her against his chest, wrapping his arms around her and smoothing her long, dark waves away from her sweaty brow. She'd looked up at him for a long time, seeming to search for something; then, seemingly satisfied, she'd smiled a soft smile and closed her eyes. He'd been more than surprised when, after several minutes, instead of pulling away from him as she normally would, she'd fallen asleep there in his arms.

He'd chalked it up to jet lag as a result of her trek from Mexico. And when she'd refused her own beer that afternoon, insisting she'd just have a few sips of his instead, he'd taken her at her word that she just wasn't very thirsty. But the day they pulled the job on the tanker trucks…that was when he'd figured it out.

They'd been scrambling all morning to get everyone into place, but by eleven am they had the cars fueled up and it was almost go time. He'd been standing next to the car checking the pack containing the liquid nitrogen one last time, when he'd heard retching coming from the other side of the car. Dropping the pack onto the driver's seat he'd come around to the passenger side to find Letty doubled over and losing everything she'd eaten for breakfast that morning. Alarmed, he'd moved quickly to her side, placing his hand on her back.

"Are you okay?" he asked, concerned.

"I'm fine," she gasped, before gagging one more time and beginning to cough.

"Letty, if you're sick…" he began. In all the years they'd been together…in all the years he'd known her, he couldn't remember ever seeing her throw up. He was a little shaken by it.

"I'm fine," she repeated, firmly. "It's just nerves."

"Baby…" he tried again, unconvinced. She was lying. Letty didn't get nervous before a job…not like this.

"Dom," she warned.

He held up his hands in surrender. He could tell she was embarrassed to have vomited in front of him, and the last thing he wanted to do was to make her more uncomfortable. As a general rule, they were not self-conscious with each other, but he knew her well enough to know that the loss of control associated with being sick would make her feel weak…though he hoped she knew him well enough by now to know that he could never see her that way.

An hour later she was back to her normal self, hanging from the back of a moving tanker truck like she was born to do it, and her bout with sickness that morning was temporarily forgotten. It was later that evening, after the job, after he and Letty had met the others back at the beach, that he had realized the truth.

She had excused herself almost immediately and headed back to the little bungalow he'd rented near the shore. He found her there a short while later, after telling everyone else he'd meet them on the beach at sundown. She was lying on the bed, eyes closed, dressed only in her underwear, hair still damp from the shower. She appeared to be sleeping. The room was hot, cooled only by the overhead fan and the occasional ocean breeze. She was curled slightly on her side and her skin had flushed a pretty pink in the afternoon heat. He stood there staring at her, enjoying the unguarded moment he'd been allowed. His eyes had roamed her body from her long, slender legs, to the gentle flare of her hips, the perfect dip of her waist, the soft roundness of her breasts, all the way up to her beautiful, sleeping face. She was gorgeous, as always, but as he stood there taking her in, he noted that her body seemed different to him. His eyes flicked back to her breasts of their own accord. They were so full. He'd noticed it when they'd made love in the cove, too. She hadn't really gained weight that he could tell…it wasn't that. He couldn't put his finger on it, but after years of being with someone, you know their body…at this point he probably knew Letty's better than he knew his own. Something was different.

Just as he was beginning to contemplate this and what it could mean, Letty's eyes flew open. She sat straight up and then, before he could say anything; she sprang out of the bed and ran for the bathroom. She made it there just in time to vomit the remains of her dinner into the toilet.

There was a small fraction of time where he'd stood there in shock, staring at her, as all the little pieces slowly clicked into place. Finally, the pathetic sound of her retching and the sight of her mostly-naked form kneeling on the bathroom floor had pulled him out of his stupor. Grabbing a bottle of water from the table, he moved tentatively into the bathroom, ran cool water over a washcloth and knelt beside her. She had quieted by this point, but remained kneeling near the toilet, head bowed. Lifting her hair gently with one hand, Dom offered her the washcloth with the other. She accepted it with trembling hands and slowly wiped her face and mouth. Reaching for the bottle of water Dom had placed on the floor, she opened it and rinsed her mouth thoroughly before taking a couple of tentative sips. She sat the bottle back on the floor, and, still, she didn't look at him. Finally Dom broke the silence.

"Letty?" he said, a question in his voice.

She'd looked at him then, and Dom's heart had squeezed painfully in his chest. Her dark brown eyes were rimmed with red and full of tears, and whether they were from the force of being sick or due to emotion, either way, the effect was the same. Taking her hand in his, he asked, quietly, "Are you…?"

Nodding slowly in answer to his unspoken question, she took a deep breath and said, "I'm pregnant."

He hadn't said anything for several seconds. On some level he had figured it out on his own, but hearing her say the words had made it real somehow. It wasn't until she raised her eyebrow in a way that was just so typical of her, that he began to react. A slow smile broke over his face.

The situation wasn't ideal; he was on the run, couldn't go back home, didn't have his shit together, so to speak, but…Letty was having his baby. He couldn't believe it.

She watched him carefully for another minute, gauging his reaction, before she too began to smile.

He stood up, suddenly, and reached for her, lifting her from the bathroom floor and carrying her over to the bed. He laid her down, gently, and then knelt beside her on the floor. He pressed his lips tenderly against her belly before turning to face her and resting his head softly on her abdomen. She smiled, placing her hand on the back of his head.

"How long have you known?" he asked.

"About a week," she said, her voice shaking slightly. "I was going to tell you when we met up, but…" she trailed off.

"But then I didn't show up" he finished for her, regret filling his voice.

"You had no way of knowing," she shrugged. "Besides, you had a job to do."

At these words, Dom stiffened and rose up off of her, leaving her hand hanging awkwardly in thin air. His face darkened.

"I can't believe you went out there today," he accused. "For fuck's sake Letty, you were hanging from the back of a Goddamn tanker truck!"

Her face melded into equal parts contrition and indignation, as she rose up onto her elbows. "It was supposed to be the last job for awhile! How was I supposed to know we'd only end up with half the load?"

Dom stared down at her navel, jaw clenching, and said nothing.

"Hey," she said softly, sitting up and taking his face in her hands. "I'm sorry. I thought I could do this one last job and then I could stop…we could lay low for a while," she held his eyes with her own until he nodded his acceptance.

"No more jobs though, Letty. I mean it," he warned. He rarely told her what to do, mostly because she'd do whatever the hell she pleased despite any decree he might make, but this was different, and she knew it.

"I know," she agreed, solemnly. "I wouldn't do anything to hurt this baby, Dom."

He knew that was true. He watched silently as her hand traveled, unconsciously, to her still-flat belly and rested there, protectively. It was funny because he'd never thought of Letty in those terms…never thought of her as being particularly maternal, but now that he'd imagined her in that role, he could see it so clearly. Lying there on the bed before him in the afternoon sunlight, she was breathtakingly beautiful…feline…a lioness protecting her young. She'd be an amazing mother. He told her as much as he climbed onto the bed with her and pulled her into his arms, hugging her tightly to his chest.

"I love you," he whispered, his voice rough with emotion.

"I love you, too," she replied, her arms going around his shoulders.

She buried her face in his neck, pressed her lips against the skin there and said softly, "We can't stay here much longer." She sighed, before asking in a voice filled with uncertainty, a voice so unlike her own, "What are we gonna do?"

He hadn't answered her then, only held her more tightly, because the truth was he had no idea. After a few minutes, he turned her until she faced away from him and then pulled her back against his chest and let his hand drift down to press against her belly. They stayed that way in the bed, his large body spooned around her much smaller frame, until they both drifted off to sleep.

When he woke up, she was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Notes:** Once again, thank you all for the lovely reviews…they feed the muse! Also, there are adult situations ahead…read only if you're old enough!

**Remember Tonight Chapter 3**

It was dusk by the time he'd woken up alone in the bungalow and fully dark by the time he'd made his way to the beach. Once there, he gave each of his team members their cut of the profit from the fuel heist. He needed to find Letty, but he had responsibilities to his team also. They needed to get paid, so they could go safely on their separate ways. When he met up with Han, his friend had reminded him that the clock was ticking on their safety in this location, which only served to further fuel his need to find Letty. They needed to talk, and she wasn't going to like the conclusion he'd come to in her absence.

"You seen, Letty?" he asked.

Han's eyes moved past Dom, looking at something over his shoulder, and he nodded in the general direction of the deserted beach.

Dom turned, his eyes searching the darkness and finding her alone near the shoreline, perched on a large, flat rock, seemingly lost in her own thoughts.

He felt the familiar pull in his stomach. She was the center of his universe. Gravity. He moved toward her.

She looked up at the sound of his approaching footfalls.

"There she is," he said, softly, as he crossed the distance between them and settled in beside her, placing his arm around her shoulders.

"I hear Rio's nice this time of year," she offered, picking up the thread of their earlier conversation about what they were going to do now.

"The cops are getting hungry," he said, regretfully.

"Then I guess we're doin' our job," she replied, flippantly, tilting her head back to lean lovingly against his shoulder.

He pressed his lips softly against her hair. He knew she didn't want to hear what he had to say on this subject, but he pressed on.

"I'm a walking target…I don't want you around when they catch up to me," he said, meeting her eyes, cautiously.

He felt her stiffen. She turned to face him, fully.

"Ride or die, remember?" It was their motto…the way they lived their lives. The way they'd lived their life together.

He turned his face away from her. Things were different now. He knew it, and so did she…she just hadn't accepted the way things had to be yet.

"Dom, how long have we been doing this?" she asked, incredulously. "And now all of a sudden, out of nowhere, it's too dangerous?" But it wasn't out of nowhere, and she knew it. It was because of the baby…because he loved them and wanted to protect them.

"Come on…" she scoffed, and he could see her gearing up for an argument. She had agreed not to participate in any more jobs, and to her that meant her safety and the baby's. For him, that wasn't good enough, though. He wanted her somewhere completely safe. He wanted her home, even if that meant being away from him. He couldn't go home, but she could. And he knew she would never agree to it…not in a million years.

She took his face in her hands, her eyes pleading with him to come up with some other solution, some way for them to stay together. "We'll figure it out," she pleaded, her dark eyes glittering with moisture. "We always do." Her eyes searched his face, and she must have seen the pain in his expression then, because rather than continuing with her argument, she pressed her lips to his.

In that moment, he could _feel_ her love for him…as if she were trying with all of her might to prove its existence. He knew though, goddammit he _knew_. He loved her too, and he hated the thought of being separated from her for so long, especially now.

Her lips pressed against his again, and this time he reacted. Placing his hands on the backs of her thighs, he lifted her onto his lap, dragging her toward him until she sat straddling his thighs. He kissed her over and over again, until they were both breathless and in desperate need of the privacy of their bungalow.

In the darkness, he laid her down gently on the bed and removed each article of her clothing, starting with her strappy leather sandals and ending with the small, black bikini she'd been wearing underneath her shorts and top. When she lay completely naked, he quickly stripped off his own clothes and joined her on the bed, pressing his body along the length of hers and reveling in the feel of her hot skin against his own. She opened her legs and his hips came to rest in the cradle of her thighs. He kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, her lips. She opened her mouth to him and he pressed his tongue inside, loving the familiar taste of her. His hands skimmed along her sides, brushing the outline of her full breasts and traveling down to her hips. With his fingers he traced her spine, the dip of her lower back. Then he slid them down and gripped her ass, pulling her against his hardness, his lips never breaking contact with hers. He could feel her heat against him and he pressed forward, seeking it. She gasped, breaking the seal of their lips, as he surged into her. He pressed his forehead against hers and rocked against her, setting a pace that she easily matched with the rhythmic press of her hips against his.

He made love to her that night, trying to express with his body what he was so often unable to express in words. He kissed her softly, touched her body reverently, pressed himself as far inside of her as he could get…and when she came apart beneath him, he held her tightly in his arms until her body stopped shaking. Then she whispered words of love and encouragement until he followed her over the edge. When it was over and their breathing had begun to slow, she'd curled into him and let him hold her until, finally, she slept.

Eventually, he'd moved from the bed. He sat in a chair in the darkness for over an hour watching her sleep, wrestling with his decision. It felt wrong to leave her, and yet how could he stay? If she got caught with him, she'd have their baby in prison. Without him, she stood a much better chance. She could go home, blend in, stay safe. And she wouldn't be totally alone. She'd have Mia.

_But she won't have me_, he'd thought to himself.

In the end, he'd done what he felt was best for her. He said a silent prayer in the darkness, asking God to keep her safe…and then he left her.

"I left her the money from the tanker job, my share and hers. I left her my necklace…and then I left her, Brian."

Dom felt himself slowly returning to the present. The memories were receding, and reality was rushing back to the forefront. Letty was alive, and he was on his way to get her. And their son.

By now they were almost to the airport, and Brian had no words that would remedy the guilt he could hear so plainly in his friend's voice. So, he said the only thing he could.

"Bring 'em home, Dom."

After that, neither of them spoke for the remainder of the drive.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Notes**: To those of you who are taking the time to follow this story…time is precious…so, thank you for spending your minutes on my work. As always, your reviews are greatly appreciated.

**Remember Tonight Chapter 4**

Leticia Ortiz is dead.

Dead to her friends and family…dead to her country…dead to Dom.

She shivers in the cool air of the airplane cabin.

She'd spent two years hearing that statement over and over again. Day after day, night after night, it had been drilled into her. And she believed it. She knew it to be true. She was dead to everyone who had ever cared about her. She had accepted that fact around the time her newborn son was taken from her arms and no one came to help her. Dom didn't break down the door and sweep them away to safety, Vince didn't show up to beat the shit out of her tormentors, Han didn't materialize to assure a fast getaway…even the Busta' didn't make an appearance. She'd known in that moment she was truly dead to them all…if no one had come for her by that point, then it was because they were positive that she was already dead. Up to that point she'd had hope…she'd maintained her fight. She'd stayed in line because her child's life depended on it, and her captors made sure she was fully aware of that fact, but she'd done it with her usual defiance. After her son was born though, when she realized no one was coming for them, her survival instinct switched from fight to flight. She'd spent the next couple of months formulating a plan, and when she was as sure as she could be that it was as foolproof as possible, she spent the next year executing it. She did every job they demanded of her with excellent precision, no questions asked. She was the model prisoner, and in return they gave her just enough freedom to leave a trail. A fingerprint here, some hair or saliva there. She was good at her job and she was banking on the fact that some governmental agency would be trying to stop the steady string of auto-based heists. She only hoped that one of the agencies would contact the FBI…that somehow they would figure out that she was still alive and come looking for her.

In the end, none of it went down as she'd anticipated it would. The FBI did become aware of her survival. Somehow news of her prints had spread from Berlin to Interpol to the FBI. What she hadn't been aware of was that Kaiser, the man who'd been running her since her abduction, worked for another man who had inside connections in the FBI. This other man, Heller Amsel, had shown up a week ago, furious with Kaiser. He'd arrived in the middle of a briefing for their next run. All the members of the small crew they used were gathered at a conference table in the office of the private home where Letty was being held. At the other man's arrival, she'd seen a visible change in Kaiser. Apparently, Amsel didn't commonly make house calls. Her captor was scared, and if he was scared, so was Letty. Kaiser was the devil, and if someone scared him they terrified the hell out of her.

He'd been right to be scared. Without so much as a word, Amsel put two bullets in Kaiser's forehead and never even blinked. Letty sat there, stunned. When Amsel turned to her, her heart dropped into her stomach. "Ms. Ortiz," he said, gesturing toward the door. "Come with me, please." It wasn't an invitation. It was a command.

Her stomach churned and her heart slammed in her chest. She was going to die now. All of her hard work all these months, everything she'd endured, and it wasn't going to pay off fast enough. It would end here, in Berlin, in a dark room, in an unfamiliar house…with her son sleeping upstairs. My God, what would happen to him?

Tears slipped silently down her cheeks, unchecked. It was the first time she'd allowed herself to cry since the day he was born. She didn't cry often, and she wouldn't cry for herself now, but she would cry for her child, for his father, who would never know him.

Noticing the uncharacteristic display of emotion, Amsel addressed her.

"No need for tears, Ms. Ortiz. I would hazard to guess I'm about to become the best friend you've had in the past two years." He motioned for her to take a seat, and she sat, numbly. "Granted, that may not be saying much, but hear me out. The way I see it, I have two options. Kill you. Or let you go." He stared at her for a minute, allowing his words to sink in. Satisfied that he had her attention, he continued, "The FBI has a special task force looking for you. They're good, and they are closing in. If I kill you, they will find your body and they will keep hunting until they figure out how you ended up here in Berlin, and that will eventually lead them from Braga to Kaiser and back to me. But if I let you go," he paused, dramatically. "If I send you and the boy back to Toretto…well, someone's bound to see you together. One little tip and the FBI are off to the Dominican Republic. And once they're on his trail, after that job he and his compatriots pulled in Brazil last year, I will be the furthest thing from the authorities' minds." He smiled then, and though his plan meant good news for her, his grin sent goose bumps skittering up and down her arms. "What do you say, Ms. Ortiz?" He held out his hand toward her. "Friends?"

The plane jolts onto the runway and jars Letty from the unpleasant memory. Thankful for the reprieve, she sits up straighter in her seat and slides open the window blind. Looking out the window into the beautiful Dominican sunshine, she tries to shake off the chill that clings to her skin as a result of her thoughts. In the end, Amsel had kept his word, after all. She's here in the D.R. and her son is safely nestled on her lap.

There's a lot of unpleasantness from the past two years that she's going to have to let go of. She'll need time to do that, but right now she needs to focus on her son. Dante.

She looks down to where he lays snuggled against her chest. She presses her lips into his dark curls and breathes in the sweet, baby scent of him. He's getting so big already. It's hard, sometimes, to picture him as the tiny being that she'd carried in her belly. When he was born, the midwife Kaiser had hired had placed him on her chest, and Letty had just stared down at him in awe. She'd placed her hands on his naked back, holding him awkwardly against her skin. She had no idea what to do with him, but she'd been hopelessly in love with him already.

She'd cried then. Great wrenching sobs had assailed her. She hadn't cried when Phoenix dragged her from the wreckage of her car, hadn't cried when she was passed from Braga to Kaiser, hadn't cried when Kaiser pressed the muzzle of a semi-automatic weapon against her newly-rounded belly…but she cried when she held her son in her arms for the first time. Because she loved him so much, because she missed Dom, because she was exhausted from hours of painful labor, because she didn't know how to be a mother, because she didn't know how to keep her son safe…because she was more scared than she'd even been in her entire life.

Taking pity on her, the midwife had whispered soft words to her in a language she didn't understand until she was able to pull herself together. Then the woman kindly showed Letty how to nurse the baby and change him, how to burp him and give him a bath. It wasn't ideal, but Letty was so grateful to the woman because it was so much more than she'd expected. For those few brief moments, she was able to block out the rest of the world and focus solely on the new little being that she and Dom had managed to bring into the world.

When Kaiser came in an hour later and instructed the midwife to take the baby away, her sense of dread had returned full force. She'd realized not only that no one was coming for her, but that her child was now separated from her, outside of her body…never safe in her womb again. At least before, he'd always been with her, safe as long as she was. Now they could take him anywhere, do anything to him. She threw back her covers, prepared to lunge at Kaiser, but he merely flicked his eyes in the direction her son had gone and said, "I wouldn't do that if I were you." His words had frozen her in her tracks. Even more so than before, she was at Kaiser's mercy, and she'd known from his words and the look in his eyes that he knew it, too.

The movement and noise in the cabin is causing Dante to stir against her. She immediately refocuses her attention on her son. He blinks twice and lifts his head from her chest. His dark curls are damp with sweat and there's a pink line along one side of his forehead where it's been resting against her collarbone for the last hour. His dark eyes find hers and he studies her sleepily. She brushes her lips against his forehead and smiles down at him. Yawning, he stretches and then slips his thumb into his mouth.

He's a good mix of them. He has her lips and nose, but Dom's hair and eyes. He watches her with those dark, serious eyes. Her heart squeezes. He's such a solemn little guy. It's no wonder, she supposes, with the life he's had so far. She's managed to shield him from the worst of it, but kids sense things, and if nothing else, she knows he's sensed her continued anxiety since the moment he was born. Probably even before that.

She tickles his thighs and he hunches into himself, laughing involuntarily. It's her surefire way of getting a smile out of him. He can't help it. He's ticklish, like his dad. She stops and lets him catch his breath. He smiles around his thumb, and his eyes are shiny and bright now when he looks up at her.

She smiles, satisfied.

"You ready to go find your dad, little man?" she asks. Her heart flutters, nervously, at the prospect, but Dante nods approvingly.

"Da-," he repeats.

She knows he doesn't really know what finding his dad means, but his apparent approval is still oddly comforting. Rising into the aisle, she stands Dante in her empty seat and grabs their single backpack from the overhead compartment. Slinging it onto her back in one fluid move, she then swings Dante up onto her hip and heads for the exit.

As she steps off the plane at **Samaná El Catey International Airport**, Letty takes a deep breath. Her lungs fill with the humid, tropical air and she breathes a sigh of relief. For the first time in two years, she feels free.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Notes**: For those of you who've stuck with me through this unexpected hiatus and returned for more, thank you! Some of you sent me PM's and know that my computer died suddenly and forced me to take a few weeks off. It's replaced now and I'm back on track. I hope that you enjoy this latest installment. And as an apology for the wait and a treat to you dedicated few…I'm adding a little bonus: A photographic sneak peek of things to come. Check out photobucket dot com forward slash DomAndLetty

**Remember Tonight Chapter 5**

According to Amsel, Dom now owns the little bungalow on the beach where he and Letty had spent their last days together in Samana. It's taken two hours of taxi service and a short walk to get here, but finally she has arrived at the familiar dwelling. She finds the key hidden right where she knew it would be. She smiles to herself. Little things like this make her feel better, like not so much has changed in the two years she's been gone.

She steps inside and drops their backpack onto the small sofa. The place is dusty, but clean. It's obvious no one has been here in quite some time.

She makes her way to the bedroom and stops short, realizing exactly how long it has been since he was here. In the corner of the bedroom stands a wicker crib. It's covered in mosquito netting and a thick coating of dust. He must have bought it right after she'd gone back to the US. Her stomach twists unpleasantly. He'd had every intention of working out a way for them to be together as a family again. She shakes off the immediate what-ifs that spring to mind. They don't serve any purpose now.

She pulls back the dusty netting and finds the sheets inside clean and soft. Hefting Dante's significant weight up over the rail, she places him gently against the cotton. The fluffy white sheep on the printed sheets grin up at her, promising to provide her little man with sweet dreams. She kisses two fingers and presses them lightly to Dante's forehead before leaving the room.

She glances longingly at the other bed as she goes. All of the traveling has sapped her strength and she wants nothing more than to lie down as well, but she can't brave that big bed alone. Instead, she heads for the couch.

There's nothing to do now but wait, anyway.

She lies down on the small sofa and curls onto her side.

Dom is on his way.

She comforts herself with the thought. She knows it's nothing more than self-reassurance, but right now it's all she's got.

Eventually, she falls into a fitful sleep and almost immediately begins to dream. She's at the old place. She's sixteen years old and Dom is coming home from Lompoc today. She's been crashing with Mia and Vince for the past few months, but today she feels as though she should make herself scarce. It's been hard without him here for the past two years, but they've all gotten by. They've even somehow managed to keep the garage and the store afloat.

For awhile, Mia had been gone too, staying with distant relatives, but she'd become emancipated three months ago and moved back into the house. Since then, there's a social worker that stops by from time to time, but other than that things have been pretty good. Now, with Dom coming home today, things would be almost back to normal. She wonders briefly how sleeping arrangements are going to work since she's moved into Dom's room in his absence. She and Mia used to share a room, but they are older now and need their own space. They're still close but more like sisters now than the friends they'd been before, bonded more by love and shared experience than shared interests. Letty is always in the garage, doing her best to stay out of detention, while Mia spends her days studying and daydreaming about Brad Pitt.

The scene fast-forwards in the way that can only happen in dreams, and Letty sees her teenage-self flee the house for the relative safety of the garage. She watches as she pulls on her coveralls, leaving them folded down at the waist in deference to the heat. It's humid, and she can feel the way the white wife-beater she's wearing sticks to her tanned skin. She grabs a wrench and in no time she's immersed in a brake job that doesn't really need to be done until tomorrow afternoon.

She knows that she's avoiding him. She's always felt an irrational claim over Dom, and she's embarrassed by it. He's not her family.

Some part of her realizes she is dreaming at this point because she can see what's coming, though in real life this moment had caught her totally off guard.

She hears the door open and calls out off-handedly, "Sorry, we're closed. Come back tomorrow."

She gives the wrench another half turn.

Footsteps behind her alert her to the fact that she's no longer alone in the shop.

"Hey man," she says, swinging around angrily, wrench slightly raised. "I said, we're clo…" her words die on her lips.

There stands Dominic…all six-feet-two of him. He doesn't look at all like the eighteen year old boy who'd been hauled away in hand cuffs two years before. His shoulders are much broader, his chest more well-defined and his once-average biceps now stretch his shirtsleeves to their limits.

Those aren't the only changes.

His dark curls are gone, his head now shaved completely clean.

Before her stands a man.

"Dom?" she asks. She's known him practically her whole life, but he seems so different now.

"Letty?" She can hear her own shock reflected in his voice.

It's strange because she knows she's changed too in the years that he's been gone, but she knows that she's fundamentally the same, and she's not so sure she can say the same for him.

Her palms are sweating and she accidentally drops the wrench she's been holding. She swears as it hits the floor, the loud noise causing her to jump.

And then he smiles.

"Letty." It's an affirmation, just as his smile is an affirmation to her.

He opens his arms to her and in two quick steps she's folded into a tight embrace. His palms cradle her back and he rests his chin on top of her head, sighing.

She presses herself closer. She's really missed him.

Relief at his homecoming, at his familiarity, brings moisture to her eyes which she quickly blinks away before he can see. She's not a crier…and this is not a moment for tears.

Her arms rest on top of his shoulders, her hands meeting at the nape of his neck. She can feel the bare skin in the place where his hair used to brush his collar. They hold onto each other for long minutes, neither of them prepared to break contact just yet.

She feels warm inside. She's never been quite sure of her place in Dom's life, but in this moment it's clear that it's not just Mia and Vince that he's missed…he's missed her, too.

After several long seconds in his arms, she begins to become aware of a new sensation. The large hands that had been cradling her back are now moving; one, in a slow circular pattern between her shoulder blades, the other sliding to a stop dangerously low on her back. During its migration, the thumb of the latter has slipped unnoticed into the space between her wife-beater and her coveralls. Its gentle back-and-forth stroking along that tender strip of skin sends a shiver up her spine. Gooseflesh breaks out over her arms and legs and her nipples tighten against the thin material of her wife-beater.

His hands still immediately, and she is painfully aware of how tightly her breasts are pressed against his chest. The damn things are fairly new, and she's still figuring out exactly what to do with them. Her body has changed dramatically in the last year. She's grown several inches, and gone from coltish to curvy in the span of a few months.

She's still not sure how she feels about that last part.

She pulls away, self-conscious. She'd followed Dom around for years when they were kids and she'd promised herself that things would be different now that he was back. Especially after seeing the man he's grown into while he's been gone.

She moves away from him, and he lets her slip easily from his arms, not protesting in the least. She glances up, checking his face for signs that he now thinks she's a complete freak. What she finds in his expression brings her up short, though. He's uncomfortable, yes…but there's something else there, too.

Desire.

She swallows hard. The warmth she'd felt before morphs into a slow burn low in her belly.

He's never looked at her like that before.

She decides several things in that moment; that she does in fact like her new curves, that it might be worth trying to get Dom's attention just one last time, and that she hopes to God she's not biting off more than she can chew by trying.

Trying to appear nonchalant and not at all self-conscious, she crosses her arms over her chest and clears her throat.

"You look different," she accuses, still feeling quite ambivalent about this new, unsettling, manly version of him that stands before her. She finds his new appearance appealing, and yet much more intimidating.

"You're one to talk," he grins uncomfortably, shaking his head.

He still appears to be struggling with what he sees, what he feels.

He's moved several paces away now, yet he can't seem to keep his eyes from roaming her body. His gaze begins at her feet and works slowly upward, pausing several times, before finally coming to rest on her eyes once again.

She blushes.

And she hates herself for it.

She does not blush. He's always been the only one who could make her…and she's always hated it.

She smiles a little to herself as she realizes that's one more thing that hasn't changed.

A noise from outside draws her attention away from him.

It's a car door.

It must be Mia coming to see Dom…she's missed him so much too and she'll be pissed that he's wandered out here to the garage to hang out with Letty when she's got a full-blown welcome home party going for him up at the house.

But wait…that wasn't right…

Dom had come to see her first that night. He'd guessed she'd be in the garage…he'd told her that later. Mia hadn't found out he'd made it home until he and Letty had made their way back to the house.

The dream-memory begins to fall apart and the confusion of half-wakefulness sets in.

Letty's eyes open and she blinks rapidly in the soft evening light. She recalls the dream and smiles softly, thinking about the first time Dom had looked at her as something more than the neighbor kid his family had a fondness for. That year had been the beginning of their relationship. He'd been three weeks shy of his twentieth birthday when he came home, and she'd just turned sixteen that summer. He'd fought it tooth and nail, but she'd been persistent, and by the time she'd turned seventeen he'd accepted that their age difference would not deter her. Minus a few growing pains, they'd been together ever since.

Until two years ago, that is…

The thought causes her to tense and she cracks her neck to alleviate the pressure. She stands and raises her arms over her head to stretch her muscles. Just as she's about extend her arms toward the ceiling a sound outside makes her freeze mid-motion.

Boots on gravel.

The car door hadn't been a part of her dream after all. It was what had roused her from her sleep.

Heavy footfalls in the sand.

A man.

Dom?

Of course it's Dom.

Still, tiny pricks of fear needle at her spine.

Please be Dom.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's notes**: Hey guys…I know it's been a long time, but I hope some of you are still out there reading this. For those of you who sent me encouraging notes and reviews…thank you! Your stories about rereading this story many times and hoping for updates (even when it seemed one might never come) kept it in my heart to finish this no matter how long it takes. I know what it's like to love a story and be left hanging…it's awful. I don't want to be _that_ author. So, if you can bear with me while I struggle through the long process of getting this just how I want it…I promise to finish it! Ok guys…here goes…if it's been awhile since you read the story you might want to backtrack a bit because, if not, this chapter might drop you in the deep end…

**Remember Tonight Chapter 6**

Dom cuts a path impatiently through the soft, white sand and comes to an abrupt halt a few paces shy of the old wooden door. It's taken a small eternity to get here, and his stomach is in knots.

After a seemingly endless flight from Goa to the Dominican Republic and a forty-five minute ride on a rented motorcycle that barely reached fifty-five at full throttle, he's finally made it to their little bungalow on the beach. However, now that he's here he doesn't know if he can bring himself to go inside. What if he opens the door and there's nothing there to greet him but cobwebs and memories? What if this whole crazy thing has been a lie?

He hadn't taken more than a brief moment to think about the improbability of the story the man on the phone had offered. He'd merely seen the possibility of hope dangling in front of him like a lifeline and he'd leapt for it, seizing it without a second thought. He'd been so sure when he left Brian in Goa that the man on the phone was telling the truth…that Letty and his son were alive, and all he had to do was go and meet them in Samana. Against all odds, deep in his bones, he'd felt the truth of their survival. A couple of hours into the flight, however, his rational brain had begun a full-on assault on his resolve.

Now he stands silently in front of the tiny beachfront home. The joke will be on him if he opens the door and finds the thing he dreads most of all…

Nothing.

Nothing and no one.

Ignoring his nerves, he takes a few more tentative steps before pausing once again, this time right outside the door.

This will be the beginning…or the end.

It will be the beginning of their second chance at a life together, or…it'll be the moment that finally breaks him.

Being here, seeing this place again…the last place he'd seen her alive…the last place he'd made love to her, told her he loved her. The place where she'd told him she was carrying his child…

If he has to face this place alone…without her, without their child…he won't survive it.

Everything he has, everything he is, is invested in this moment. Call it hope…call it denial, but whatever it is, the tiny part of himself that could never quite come to grips with the fact that Letty was gone…the only part of _him_ that's really left, will live or die in this moment.

He rubs his hand nervously, back and forth, across the top of his head and sends up a silent prayer.

_Please, God…please…_

He reaches for the knob and his heart thuds heavily in his chest when the tumblers give way on their own.

The door is unlocked.

He places his palm against the sun-bleached wood and it feels dry and rough beneath his hand. He closes his eyes and gives a gentle shove.

The door swings open wide and when he opens his eyes…there she is.

In an instant he is overcome. Happiness and gratitude wash over him in a swell so profound his knees go weak. Relief like he's never experienced settles into his bones.

_Thank you, God….thank you…thank you..._

His eyes drink her in. She is standing there in the doorway, a sleeping child in her arms, poised as if to run. His brain seems to short circuit on the thought that the child in her arms is theirs. It's almost as if his mind can't process it, and so it momentarily sets aside that vital piece of information until he's able to fully grasp it. In the meantime, his eyes focus on Letty, who is very much alive and standing less than three feet in front of him.

She's familiar and foreign all at once.

Her hair is the same, long and untamed, but her frame is noticeably thinner than the last time he'd seen her…back when her body had just been getting accustomed to the new life growing inside her. The leanness of her body now reminds him of the Letty of their youth, except the roundness of childhood is no longer there to soften her striking facial features. The result of the change is that each feature now appears more prominent than before…her eyes seem wider, her lips fuller, the lines of her brow more expressive.

He studies her face, and his heart squeezes painfully in his chest. She's more beautiful to him now than she's ever been before. More precious…

He watches, transfixed, as the worry line marring her brow begins to disappear and recognition slips over her. Her shoulders drop, the muscles uncoiling abruptly as if all of the fight has suddenly left her.

A strangled sob escapes her lips, and he watches as she quickly presses the back of her hand to her mouth, trapping the sound inside. With bruising force she keeps it there, pressed tightly against her lips, trembling with the force it takes to hold herself together. Her eyes appear startled, adrenaline causing her pupils to dilate so that the familiar brown of her irises is almost completely swallowed up in inky blackness. She shifts her gaze slightly downward, and his eyes are drawn to the child in her arms. Dom focuses his attention on the boy's small denim-clad leg, noting the way Letty's thumb worries the seam on the pint-sized pair of jeans. He follows the line of her arm, noting how naturally it seems to bear the weight of their child, keeping him nestled safely against her hip. Their son's sleeping face rests against her collar bone. Only his profile is visible to Dom's searching eyes…but it's enough.

Dom exhales a long, shuddering breath. His eyes burn and he swallows convulsively, trying to reign in his emotions.

Letty's chest gives a mighty heave beneath their son's sleeping countenance, drawing Dom's gaze to her face once again. Her eyes have begun to glisten with unshed tears. He can see she's about to lose the tenuous hold she has on her emotions, and he's right there with her.

"Mi familia," he manages, his voice a strained whisper.

She loses it then. Her face crumples, her shoulders begin to shake, and against her will, her tears finally break free.

And just like that he's wrapping the two of them in his arms. He holds them tightly against him, promising himself he'll never let them go again.

He clings to them as if he's in a vast ocean and they're the only things keeping him from going under. He savors the way she grips his body with her free arm, getting as close to him as she can while still holding their son in her arms. His hands move frantically over her body, checking, reassuring. When he finally stills, he becomes aware of the blessed weight of them in his arms. He is infinitely grateful for it.

He's laughing.

He doesn't know when it happened, but he's laughing and smiling and he's pretty sure he's openly crying and he doesn't give a fuck because he's never been so incredibly happy in his entire life.

The fingers of his right hand sift through the familiar softness of Letty's dark curls. His left hand explores the as-yet-undiscovered topography of his son's tiny back. The bones there are small but sturdy.

Dom's chest aches with all that he feels…the magnitude of all that he's lost and all that he's suddenly, inexplicably found. The emotional war rages heatedly against his ribs. He's so full of love for his family at this moment…but at the same time, the guilt he feels for all they've been through is crushing. He doesn't really even know _what_ they've suffered, but the long plane ride to the Dominican Republic had afforded him ample opportunity to imagine the horrors that could have befallen them in his absence. Regret washes over him for the millionth time, the familiarity of the feeling making it no less punishing. He never should have left her…

He presses his lips firmly against the crown of her head. She's still crying, and the sound is ripping his heart out. He holds her tighter, as close as he can without fear of hurting the child sleeping in her arms.

"Letty," he breathes into her hair. He wants to hold her face in his hands and look into her eyes when he says these next words, but he can't bring himself to let go of her long enough to make it happen. He dips his head lower, pressing his cheek against hers. When he begins to whisper, his lips brush softly against her ear, each word a tiny caress.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he rasps. "I thought I was doin' the right thing by leavin' you."

Letty shakes her head against his chest. "Shh…" she breathes. She fights to calm her breathing, struggling valiantly to regain enough control to speak. She doesn't fully trust her voice yet, but she forces his name past trembling lips anyway. "Dom," she whispers. She hasn't spoken his name out loud in two long years. There had been no point…he wasn't there, and she'd had little hope of ever seeing him again. Now, the word feels good on her tongue, familiar and right. It soothes something in her, so she says it again. She repeats it over and over until her breath is gone and she's no longer really speaking, merely mouthing his name against the side of his neck.

She's not sure how much time passes, but eventually her tears subside and her breathing slows. She feels a desperate need to see his face, so she takes a deep breath and pulls away from the solid support of his chest. She looks into his eyes then and experiences the most profound sense of being loved. He's looking down at her like she's the most precious thing he's ever seen. She's positive he must see the same emotion reflected back at him through her eyes. She's missed him so much. She feels a well of happiness and relief spring up from the deepest parts of her. It fills her up and forces a few more joyful tears into her eyes. Standing there in his arms, their son between them, she finally feels whole. She is complete in a way she never imagined she could be, so full of love and contentment in this moment that she feels as though it could burst from her pores.

_My cup runneth over._

Something her mom used to say, something from the bible. For the first time, she thinks she fully understands the meaning.

When she smiles up at Dom, her face feels tight and itchy where the tears have dried against her skin. There's so much she needs to tell him…so much she wants to know about the time that she's been gone.

So much she needs to know.

Two years is a long time, she knows it's possible he's moved on. And yet he's here, and he loves her as much as he ever did…that much she can see. So for the moment she's just going to smile into his eyes and absorb the amazing feeling of being home.

They'll deal with all of the questions soon enough.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's notes:** As always, I'm so grateful for all of the lovely comments you guys have left in response to the last chapter. Your feedback keeps me motivated because it reminds me that there are people out there waiting to see how the story ends. When I'm stuck, your words make all the difference, and I truly appreciate each and every comment!

**Remember Tonight Chapter 7**

She's torn between putting Dante back down until he wakes up on his own and waking him up now to meet his father. She can tell by the look on Dom's face that he's dying to know more of the little boy, but she also knows her son and she knows if she wants this first meeting to go well, she should probably allow him to wake on his own. Afternoon has turned to evening and she knows they're probably all going to be suffering varying degrees of jet-lag.

"I should put him down," she says apologetically, nodding her head toward the sleeping child. "He's been asleep for the past few hours, and he's probably going to be all turned around…if I wake him up he's going to be pissed."

Dom smiles. "Wonder where he gets that?"

She smiles at this reference to their old life. The one where he'd teased her mercilessly as a young girl about her surliness upon being awakened by anything other than her own internal alarm clock…the one where, years later he'd taught her the joys of being awakened by someone you love.

She pads softly on bare feet back into the bedroom. She pauses beside the crib, and Dom is right behind her, reaching over her shoulder and pulling back the netting he'd so carefully hung two years before. Going up onto her tip-toes, she lifts Dante over the rail, placing him carefully back amongst the soft sheets.

She stands with her back to Dom, facing the crib. Her arms now empty of their son, she suddenly feels more vulnerable. Her feelings of happiness from minutes before now tempered with a sense of hesitancy. She loves Dom, and she's infinitely grateful to be here with him, of these things she's certain…it's everything else that seems suddenly up in the air. A part of her is still angry with him for leaving the way he did, regardless of his reasoning. He'd said he thought he was doing the right thing and she has no doubt that that's true, but at the end of the day he'd completely cut her out of that decision, and it still pisses her off. Things might have gone so differently if he'd stayed with her that night…

A wave of sadness washes over her with the thought and she bows her head, taking a deep breath. She won't cry over this again…over the loss of time. There's no way to get it back and she'd learned years ago not to dwell on things that can't be changed. She'd grieved their shared loss in Dom's arms a short while ago and there was nothing to do now but move on.

His hand touches the back of her neck, his fingers tracing the line of her hair where it has slipped down over one shoulder.

She shivers at the touch.

He places his hands on her bare shoulders and lets them slip down the length of her arms. When he reaches her hands he slowly entwines their fingers and steps into her personal space, his solid chest bumping gently against her back. He raises their joined hands and crosses their arms over her chest, pulling her snugly against him.

She feels his solid warmth against her back, his chin resting easily over her right shoulder. She can see his face out of the corner of her eye. He is looking down. She follows his line of sight until they are both staring at the child sleeping before them.

"What's his name?" he whispers.

"Dante," she whispers back, her voice barely audible.

When Dom remains silent, she continues, "I named him Dante after the character in Dante's Inferno." She'd been stuck in bed for weeks with the injuries from the wreck Fenix had caused, and as fate would have it, that had been the only book the private duty nurse taking care of her could find that was written in English. Months later, she'd found that the story had stayed with her. By the time she'd given birth to her son she'd felt as though she was living in some unknown level of hell, with Kaiser, her captor, ruling over her life with all the cruelty of the Devil himself. She'd named her son Dante because she'd had no illusions about the hell he'd been born into…but like the Dante of the story, she'd prayed that her son would survive it all and come out the other side.

To spare Dom the details, she says simply, "Dante was a survivor."

She feels Dom take a breath, gearing up to press her for more information, but she isn't ready to go into all of that. Her time in Berlin isn't something she wants to discuss right now…maybe not ever.

"His middle name is Cruz," she rushes to add, before he can form any unwanted questions. "Because when you left me that night…" she says matter-of-factly, without accusation. "You left me something of yours to hold onto…something that was lost to me after Fenix."

Cruz, he thinks.

Cross.

He feels the weight of his necklace where it lays pressed between her back and his front. He remembers leaving it here with her the night he left her two years ago. He remembers finding it hanging in his father's car when he went home for her funeral.

His arms tighten around her, involuntarily, and when she speaks again he can feel the gentle rasp of her voice vibrating through her chest.

"So, I didn't have your necklace…but I had Dante…and he's the best thing you could have left me with. He's what I held onto."

He turns his face into the crook of her neck and breathes in the scent of her skin.

"I'm so sorry," he exhales against her neck. He is so incredibly grateful that she had been able to take comfort in the presence of their son, but he doesn't think he'll ever forgive himself for leaving her alone to begin with. It had seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but he'd been wrong. He'd been so wrong.

He turns her slowly in his arms. There's an uncharacteristic stiffness in her shoulders, and when she stands facing him, he can see the conflicting emotions in her eyes. She's holding back, and he hates that. They've always been honest with each other…he doesn't want that to change.

Letty stares up at Dom. She loves him…has loved him for practically as long as she can remember…but she finds that she's hesitant now…so much has changed.

He'd left her.

That was something she had never seen coming. They'd never been apart before. Not really…not for any length of time. Sure, he'd gone to prison when they were kids, but that had been different…it hadn't been a voluntary separation. And even the time they'd spent on the run had been spent more together than apart.

When she'd found out she was pregnant a million possibilities had crossed her mind, but waking up alone in the Dominican Republic had not been one of them. Deep down, a part of her understands his motivations, but a bigger part of her just feels betrayed. They've been coming at life together for so long she finds it nearly impossible to accept his choice to make a unilateral decision about something so vital.

She's also painfully aware that there may have been other women in his life since she's been gone. In fact, she's _sure_ there've been other women. The Dom she knows is way too tactile to go two years without physically connecting with another person. She knows she shouldn't be angry…and part of her isn't, because mentally she understands that he believed she was dead. But the rest of her just can't get a handle on her emotions. She's devastated to think of him with someone else, and she has an almost overwhelming desire to eviscerate any woman who came within ten feet of him while she was gone. She's had two years to think about this…to prepare for this moment, and yet, she thinks nothing could have prepared her for this.

He gazes into her eyes…the same dark eyes he's been gazing into for the better part of his entire life, and he sees the questions there…the anger and the accusations. He deserves them all, he knows he does.

But he deserves tonight, too. They both do. After all the lost time…they deserve to have tonight.

He holds her gaze for several more seconds before he speaks, his voice low and rough like the strum of a bass guitar. "I know," he says, nodding his understanding.

"I know….but can we just…" He cups her face in both hands, and her jaw bones feel fragile against his palms. It's such a contradiction because he knows just how incredibly strong she is. He strokes his thumbs against her cheekbones, tracing the dark circles that are just barely visible beneath her eyes. "Can I..." he whispers, leaning forward, pausing when his lips are just a breath away from hers.

He waits there, patiently…letting her decide. He desperately wants to put everything on hold for tonight and just have her back in his arms again. He wills her silently to accept him and the love and comfort he wants to offer them both.

She's still hurt and angry, but more than those things, she's missed him. That outweighs everything else right now. In answer to his question, she tips her chin up slightly offering him her lips. When she feels the warm press of his mouth against her own, she's sure she's made the right decision.

His arms slip around her body, and he lifts her up, holding her tightly against him, letting her bare feet dangle inches above the floor. His hands ball into fists at her back, an involuntary response to the overwhelming emotion he's feeling having her pressed against him like this again. It's been so long, and he'd never thought…he'd thought he'd never feel her like this again.

It's incredible. _She's_ incredible.

Her arms encircle his neck and she holds on tight, thinking that she needs to tell him that it's okay, that she forgives him. He needs to hear the words, and somewhere deep inside, she knows she needs to say them. She needs to speak them out loud to make them real. She does forgive him. She does, damn it. Shit happens in life and he'd made a bad decision, but they'd lost so much time already, and she doesn't want to lose anymore by being angry with him for something he can never change.

Instead, she whispers that she loves him…of that at least she can be certain.

After all this time, being left alone to stew in her anger over being abandoned by him, she finds that in this moment she can only feel tremendous gratitude to be in his arms again.

He lets her petite frame slide down his body until her feet come to rest on the warm tile. He holds her face in his hands, rests his forehead against hers, and they pause there, breathing each other's air. He thinks of a million things to say in return, but none of them can express to her how much he's missed her the past two years, how he's grieved for her.

_I love you, too. _

_I've missed you. _

The words seem so insignificant compared to the way he feels about her, the way he'd desperately craved her presence next to him. He searches for the right words and prays she understand the gravity of them.

"It was like…no matter where I went, it didn't matter…there was nothing out there for me anymore. I just…I couldn't outrun you being gone."

She gazes up at him in the darkened room. She traces the familiar lines of a face she's come to know even better than her own. She imagines a world without him in it, and the cold bleakness that washes over her at the thought terrifies her. She leans forward, pressing her lips to the area just over his heart, before turning her head to the side and pressing her ear to the same spot. She stays there, listening to his heartbeat for several seconds before silently turning away from him and moving deeper into the darkness.

He is confused at first by her abrupt departure from his embrace, but understanding quickly dawns when she tugs the room divider into place…the one that separates the crib from the rest of the bedroom. It's free-standing and will allow them to hear if Dante wakes in the night, but it also provides the illusion of a separate room.

They are now alone in the small bedroom; the only piece of furniture their old bed, beckoning silently from the darkness.

**Additional author's note:** For those of you that are musically inclined, like myself…it might interest you to know that the end of this chapter (and the next chapter) were written while listening to Tracy Chapman's "Baby Can I Hold You (Tonight)" playing on an endless loop. Look it up on YouTube if you don't know it…_great_ song!


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Notes**: Okay my loves…this would be the part where the "M" rating comes into play. So, if you are a youngster and M-rated material is not suitable for you or it's just not your thing…I suggest you skip on to Chapter 9. Everyone else…enjoy! And…as always…your comments are amazing and utterly appreciated.

**Remember Tonight Chapter 8**

She stands before him in the darkness, silent and waiting.

He is nervous, and he almost laughs out loud at himself. He doesn't think he's been nervous to make love to Letty since the very first time when they were just a couple of kids. In some ways, this is like their first time all over again. They are different people now than they were all those years ago, and yet, in many ways…in the ways that matter the most…they are exactly the same.

He knows she's the same girl that used to confide in him, telling him all the things she feared, all the things she dreamed…all the things she deemed too silly or girly to share with anyone else. The same Letty who, for some unknown reason, had trusted him with parts of herself she'd never shared with anyone else.

And deep down, he's still the same boy who was so incredibly grateful to be the one she chose to share herself with.

They'd had an instant connection from the moment they met…like they were operating on a frequency that only the two of them could tune in to, and that connection's only gotten stronger over the years. Even when he thought she was lost to him, he'd never felt that connection weaken…like she was really gone.

He reaches across the space that separates them, taking her hand and gently pulling her toward him. She moves into his arms, stumbling slightly in the darkness. She laughs lightly at herself and he smiles, wondering if she's feeling a little nervous, too.

"Hey…" he says, quietly, waiting for her to look at him before he continues. "I love you." They don't say the words often…they never have, but tonight he needs her to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that he does love her…so much.

Her dark eyes catch the moonlight as she looks up at him. "Me too," she whispers, her voice little more than a rasp of air. She grips his shoulders and uses them to balance herself, stretching up onto her toes and touching her lips to his.

He savors the feeling for countless seconds before taking her bottom lip between his own and sucking gently. Eventually, her mouth opens against his, and he feels her tongue reach out to taste him. He responds in kind, and in an instant, they are battling for control of the kiss and it's like the last two years never happened, like they've never stopped doing this.

Her hands slide searchingly along his rib cage, feeling the rapid increase in his breathing. She presses closer to him, loving the feel of his large body next to hers.

His hands slip into her hair and he cradles her head in his hands, tilting it to one side and dominating the kiss for several seconds. When he breaks free, it's only to trail tiny kisses along her jawline until he reaches her ear. He takes the lobe into his mouth and bites down gently before soothing it with his tongue.

She reaches between them and unbuttons her blouse, tugging at the edges, impatiently. She knows what this man can do to her body, and they both have on entirely too many clothes for him to do it properly.

His eyes now adjusting to the dark, he sees her naked shoulders as she shrugs out of her top. He moves his hands down to touch the bare skin of her back. It is hot to the touch and so incredibly soft…just like he remembers. She's kissing the underside of his jaw, and he can hardly stand it because he knows where this is heading. When her teeth nip lightly at the tendon in his neck, he groans in pleasure.

She smiles against the skin of his neck when she hears the sound and feels him harden against her belly.

She still knows his secrets.

She has little time to be pleased with herself though because in the next instant she feels his hands gripping her ass and lifting her. Instinctively, her legs spread wide, her thighs gripping Dom's hips. It's her turn to moan when his hard length comes into direct contact with her swollen center. She bites her lip in frustration…if the way she's feeling is any indication, this is all going to be over way too quickly.

He holds her tightly against him, thoroughly enjoying the friction their bodies create as he walks them to the edge of the bed. He pauses at the edge, waiting while she struggles to pull his t-shirt over his head. Once the shirt finds its way to the floor along with hers, he lays her down on the bed, settling heavily into the cradle of her thighs. She lets out a quick breath in response, and he smiles.

She reaches behind her back to unhook her bra, but pauses halfway through the movement when he places his hand on her shoulder, stopping her. Understanding, she relaxes her arms, placing them back down on the bed.

He leans forward, pressing his face into the warm, soft place between her breasts. He turns his face from side to side…feeling the silky smoothness of her skin against his cheeks. He presses his mouth against the hollow of her cleavage, feeling her heartbeat thumping wildly against his lips. Resting his weight on his elbows, he reaches behind her and unhooks her bra. Then, using one hand, he tugs it free and tosses it unceremoniously to the floor. She's bare now from the waist up and he greedily drinks in the sight of her. He glides one open palm lovingly along the soft skin between her breasts. Glancing up, he watches her lashes flutter just as her eyes slip closed. Returning his attention to her chest, he covers both breasts with his large hands, squeezing gently, stroking, relearning her. Her breasts look the same in his hands, but she feels softer now, less firm than before. He wonders about other changes he might happen upon, and he finds that he's eager to know these new parts of her. He leans forward and takes one peaked nipple into his mouth, rolling the firm bit of flesh against his tongue, before sucking gently.

Her hands come up to grip his biceps and she draws in a quick breath in response to the gentle suction he's applying to her nipple. She feels him smile against her skin, before he drags his teeth delicately over her sensitive flesh, nipping softly at the tender peak. She tilts her head back, reveling at the sensation of his mouth on her body.

He releases her nipple with a wet pop and blows across her damp skin, watching, fascinated, as the flesh puckers in the cool night air. Replacing his mouth with his hand, he plucks lightly at the now overly-sensitive flesh with expert fingers.

His fingers alone are driving her crazy, and when he takes her other nipple into his mouth and sucks hard, she can feel the sensations he's creating mirrored deep in her core. She lets out a tiny moan and her hips come up off the bed of their own volition, flexing against his solid form, searching for relief. He grunts and she feels him press into her in response. The pressure feels heavenly against her throbbing center, so she presses against him again, and again he responds in kind. Back and forth, they find a rhythm, and within minutes she's on the edge, gasping for air.

Her breathless moans break into the sensual fog that's clouded his brain in the past few moments. He loves to elicit these sounds from her, has always taken pride in finding new ways to bring her pleasure, but right now he needs to slow things down. He needs to be inside of her when she loses control this time. Calling on every bit of self-control he possesses, he slows down the rocking motion of his hips. Coming back up onto his elbows, he looks into her passion-filled eyes, before leaning down and kissing her deeply.

She accepts his kiss, returning it with fervor. She's missed him so much, that her body physically aches with need. The need is not purely sexual though…she needs him to fill something in her that's been empty these past two years…like a part of herself that only he can put back. He's been a part of who she is for so long…she thinks it makes perfect sense. Breaking away from his kiss, she presses her hands against his chest until he sits back on his heels. His eyes are hooded and his lips are full and she's not sure how it's possible, but she thinks he's more beautiful to her in this moment than he's ever been before. She slides her hands along his taut belly, enjoying the way his muscles contract and ripple under his smooth skin. When her hands reach his waistband, she wastes no time unfastening his jeans and slipping her hand inside his tented boxers. His length is silky and hot in her palm and she squeezes him lightly, smiling when she hears his breath hiss in response. She carefully, moves the waistband of his boxers up and over his hardness, before dragging the undergarments, along with his jeans, down his thighs.

He stands, briefly, toeing off his boots and kicking his legs free of the last of his clothing. He is already impossibly hard, and he knows it won't take much to send him over the edge. Kneeling on the bed, between her thighs, he reaches for the button of her jeans, enjoying the softness of her skin when his fingers dip inside her waistband. There's a soft pop as the button releases its hold on the worn denim fabric and her belly jumps slightly at the noise. He flicks his eyes to hers as he grasps the tab on her zipper.

The grating sound of metal teeth separating fills the room, briefly, and when silence falls again, her eyes are locked on his. She feels his hands slide to her hips, fingers curling over the top of her jeans and slipping under the elastic band of her plain, white, cotton underwear. She lifts her hips for him, never breaking eye contact, as he tugs her jeans and panties free of her legs. She lays bare before him now, and she watches his face as he looks at her nakedness for the first time in two years. She knows her body has changed, and though she's not exactly afraid for him to see…she's somewhat…nervous.

He sits on his heels, looking down at her naked body lying before him. Her arms are relaxed at her sides, her legs spread slightly and draped over his so that the backs of her thighs rest gently against the tops of his. He places his hands on her knees and slides them forward along the length of her thighs, stopping when his hands reach her hips. He palms her hips, flexing his fingers around the soft flesh and rubbing his thumbs along the sharp jut of her hipbones. Leaning forward, he presses his lips to the smooth skin between her breasts. He moves downward, leaving a damp trail from her cleavage to her navel. He pauses there, studying the softness of her belly. She looks, surprisingly, the same. She's thinner than she was two years ago, so her hipbones and ribs are a little more visible than before, and she has a few tiny, silvery lines that bear witness to her pregnancy, but otherwise she looks wholly unchanged. It makes him a little sad. He wonders, briefly, what she looked like when her belly was at its fullest. He doubts very much that when she was big with his child the people who held her captive offered to take keepsake photos. He presses his lips to her belly and remembers doing the exact same thing the night he'd found out she was pregnant.

She watches the emotions slip across his features, unguarded. He's too wrapped up in his own thoughts, his own memories, to filter them. She's grateful to see his honest reactions, but when his face begins to show signs of grief, she knows it's time to bring him back to the present. Placing her open palm on his head, she strokes the bare skin, loving the familiar feeling of velvety stubble she finds there. She slips her hand down along his face, her fingers brushing his ear and eventually coming to rest along the slightly roughened surface of his jaw.

He looks up at her…and she smiles…and it's déjà vu because they've been in this same position so many times before. He smiles, too, and turns his face toward her hand until he can place a kiss into her open palm. He scoots down the bed until his face is even with the juncture of her thighs. He drapes her legs up over his shoulders and uses nimble fingers to spread her open before him. He glances up at her and her eyes are filled with need. He inhales the scent of her and leans forward, placing an open-mouthed kiss to her center.

Her head drops back onto the bed and she breathes in deeply through her nose, trying to control her breathing and her erratic heartbeat. His lips are locked around the most sensitive part of her body and he's literally making her toes curl with what he's doing down there. She wants more though…she wants him with her, in her. She rises up onto her elbows, watching him play her body like an expert musician would play his favorite instrument, and she can barely form the words to tell him what she needs. "Dom," she gasps. "Dom…I…uhh," she moans, unable to complete her thought.

She's close. He can hear it in her voice, can feel in the tension in her limbs. He knows how she feels. Tasting her, feeling her body writhing under him, has driven the last of his control out the window. He moves up her body, his hardness leaving a sticky trail along her thigh. Just that brush of her inner thigh against his length is nearly enough to do him in, and he pauses when he reaches her entrance giving himself a few seconds to regain control.

She can see him struggling. He's right there between her legs though and it's making her crazy. She doesn't care if he only lasts a few seconds. That's all it's going to take. She reaches between them, grasping his length in her hand and guiding him into her.

He groans and tries to protest. "Letty, wait…I can't…I'm uhhhnnn," he can't finish. All of his energy is focused on not exploding inside of her right this second.

She's so close…she just needs him to move. Just a tiny bit of friction is all it will take and she'll explode like a wildfire. She's writhing beneath him now, trying to get just a little more pressure. If he'd only press a little bit deeper…she could…

He breathes deeply through his nose. He counts to three. Then he counts to three again just for good measure. He does it until he's got at least a small measure of control. And then he slides home. He presses into her as far as he can go and he feels the slick heat of her body clamp around him instantly. That's all it takes…he's lost again. Normally he would wait for her, go slowly and let her ride out her orgasm before going after his own, but his hips have a mind of their own, and he pounds into her, spurred on by the wild gasps he can hear being ripped from her body. He slams into her, over and over and in just a few seconds, he loses his rhythm, his hips jerking against her quaking body until he explodes into her. He grunts, feeling the tight clench of her internal muscles milking him rhythmically.

She trembles again, white lightening exploding behind her eyelids. She can feel him deep inside of her and her body clenches and flutters in ecstasy at the delicious fullness. After a minute, she feels her body starting to relax, her heartbeat slowing, and she breathes deeply, struggling to catch her breath.

She opens her eyes and finds him watching her, carefully. They lay there panting, staring into each other's eyes.

He struggles to read the emotions in her expression. She seems relaxed. He prays she doesn't regret this.

She feels relieved, like a large piece of her has fallen back into place. She also feels calm and liquid…boneless.

"How do you feel?" he asks, as if reading her thoughts. His voice is deep and tender, and he places a kiss on her collar bone, as he waits for her answer.

"Like I have _one_ bone in my _entire_ body…and it doesn't belong to me," she laughs, smiling up at him.

He laughs, too, relieved. It's a terrible joke, but he's so glad to be sharing it with her. They both smile and laugh softly for a while, enjoying the moment.

When he speaks again, his words are quiet. "It does, ya know?" he says, suddenly serious. He knows this may not be the right time…Lord knows he's never been good at spotting the perfect moment for things, but he wants her to know, there's no one else.

She looks at him, confusedly. It takes her a moment to catch on, but as she replays their words in her mind, she catches his meaning. Whether there'd been anyone else while she was gone or not…there wasn't anyone else now. That's what he was telling her. He was still hers.

"Yeah?" she whispers, looking into his familiar dark eyes.

"Yeah," he says, his voice firm, no room for doubt.

She smiles up at him in the darkness.

His words aren't everything she needs…but they're no small thing either.


End file.
